First day of Interning

Today I woke up at 6:45, thinking I would be up before most of my roommates.... Boy was I wrong! Every shower and toilet (and there are 6) was taken! After waiting OUTSIDE in my PJs, in the freezing morning air I had a FREEZING cold shower. Great way to start the day. A fridge full of whole milk (which doesn't do much for me seeing as I'm lactose intolerant), and only peanut butter and toast as an alternative to cereal. Again totally starting off on the right foot here. Then it is time to leave and the lunch foods are nowhere to be found. As we get out the door one of the cooks ran after us to tell us that the lunch packing station is set up. Same as yesterday, cheese sandwich. yum! Anyway I clearly had a terrible morning, but my internship is beyond awesome. It is a shelter for female victims of domestic abuse and their children, as well as for abused children. So obviously domestic abuse=not awesome at all. But the people that work there are great, and the kids living there are super sweet. Plus I'm going to be doing all these projects that I'm super excited about. They are starting a garden to cut down food costs so I want to see if I can start compost there, and I want to paint a mural on the walls around the garden. I will also be doing work on their income generating projects, and doing art with the kids, which I'm so looking forward to. I wish I could describe how intense this place is, the situations of those who come there seeking a haven, and the warmness of those who work there. But explaining just wouldn't do it justice. Anyway, I am really excited for all the amazing things I'm going to get to do while working there!!!

First Shabbos!

This past friday I went to the Windhoek Hebrew Congregation for Shabbat services. It is a short ten minute walk from my house, and is a cute little sort of hidden building that I walked past (on my way to the mall) several times without ever noticing it. Two friends from the house (one who is not jewish and one who identifies with Judaism on some levels) borrowed some frummy clothes, and came with me. We had no clue just HOW orthodox it would be so we prepared for the most, which was unnecessary. It seems to be a pretty modern orthodox shul, with about 40 members, 30 of which are Israelis here temporarily for the diamond industry mostly. There were 9 guys and 2 women (in addition to us) that came to services, so we didn't manage to make a minyan. the services were lead by an Israeli man filling in for the Hazzan who was out of town. Services were disappointingly short and to the point with almost no singing and definitely no Carlebach tunes!! Anyway that was sort of a let down, but maybe when the hazzan returns it will be better, or at least I really hope so! But the people were super nice, after services there was a mini oneg, and everyone was super nice to us! Two of the Israeli guys that were attending services invited the 3 of us to go back to one of their homes for dinner. The other two girls declined, and another of the men we met drove them to the house so they could meet up with our housemates to go out. I decided that shabbos dinner with real families would be fun, so I went! (Everyone at the shul new eachother, and the leader gave them directions as to how to get me back to where I live!) so it was totally fine. So, I went back to his beautiful home with an amazing view of the city, and met his family, and had a lovely dinner. They were so wonderful and kind! They fed me so much, and told me all the things I should do on my visit to Namibia, and they gave me a ride home. They were even nice enough to offer their phone numbers in case I needed anything, and the 15 year old daughter offered to give me her pink pepper spray! It was so nice! But, we managed to get lost on the way home, luckily a we were driving around we saw a group of kids standing outside of a bar, and I realized it was my friends, and I knew where we were! So, they dropped me there and I went out with my friends. We went out dancing, and had a blast! It was the most fun I've had in a while. So, all in all, a very fun and exciting first shabbos in Namibia!

NAMIBIA!!!

So we arrived in Namibia on Wednesday. The flight was only 2 hours, and again South African Air had amazing Kosher food, but they accidentally brought out too many so I had people from the group bringing me kosher meat! haha it was ridiculously good! Then on the way from the airport we saw baboons, it was very exciting!!! The house is pretty big, there are two girls rooms with 6 girls each, one with 5 girls, and mine with 2, and there are two boys rooms with 3 guys each. So I lucked out, and only have one roommate who I love and think is amazing! The room itself is an ok size, an L shape so we have separate spaces. The only downside is that it is attached to the house but not in the house, basically like a shed or closet that has a door to the outside but no door into the house. So I need to go outside to get into the house or to go to the bathroom, which is annoying but worth it for the extra space and privacy. We did a bit of sightseeing around windhoek and the township Katatura and the informal settlements. We had local kids our age take us around and it was really fun! We went to a local orphanage that receives no funding from the government and it is literally just a husband and wife taking care of orphaned children. I hope that throughout the semester I'll be able to go over and help out with things like writing grants, painting and hanging out with the kids! 

Pretoria

We went to the Mandela Museum in the morning before leaving jo'burg. The museum was his old matchbox house turned into a museum. Afterwards we went to Shaft 17, an old mine converted into a conference center/job training center. We then left for a long drive to pretoria, even though it isn't that far from Jo'burg, there is so much construction for the World cup, that rush hour traffic quadruples the time it takes to travel between the two main cities. In pretoria we went to the US embassy, and had a speaker- he told us about his job at the embassy and how it relates to the affairs of South Africa. It was super interesting and made me want to apply for an embassy internship for next summer maybe... We also wen to the Vortrekker museum, and had a speaker about afrikaaner identity. It was interesting to hear the white perspective of apartheid, and hear about the effects the post apartheid era has had on the afrikaaner community. 

SOWETO homestay

Friday August 21st

Today was the day we began our homestays in SOWETO (The south west township outside jo'burg, formerly where blacks were forced to live). The host mom for the weekens was Ntuntun and her son, age 13, was Mpumilelo. She was very much a free spirited, strong woman, raising her son on her own. They had a sort of small but nice home, and they cooked traditional foods from different backgrounds for us, such as spinach mashed potatoes, steamed pumpkin, and acha (a spicy mango dish). Although they are Zulu not all of their traditional foods were taken from the Zulu traditions. After dinner (where Ntuntun freaked out slightly because she did not have advanced warning that we were vegetarians, and she had no clue what to feed us--until we told her we would just stick to the veggie side dishes!) we sat around and talked for a while. Her friend who is a history teacher came over and grilled us on certain issues, such as Obama, racism in the US-why blacks (as they say here) are called African American, but whites are not called European Americans. The best I came up with was, I don't know I have nothing to do with it. Also, everyone was very curious to hear more about Judaism and Kashrut. After explaining a lot about it I was then grilled on the issues in Israel. Great. haha actually it was crazy and I was super uncomfortable but the other girl I was with and I just plugged along doing the best we could. Then we talked a lot about HIV/AIDS, the stigma surrounding being infected, and the importance of sex education. She proceeded to discuss condom usage with her son, and explain to us how guys are a big part of the HIV issue, because they have multiple partners (polygamy is legal here- The current President Zuma, who was accused of raping a woman also has four wives!- there are also many double standards about women being monogamous, and men being free to sleep around). Anyway talking to her was enlightening, and so was talking to her 25 year old brother (his Zulu name means example so everyone calls him E.G.) Anyway, he is a  police officer and has a child with the same woman he has been with for 7 years- but he told us that men are pigs, they cannot be trusted, that our boyfriends back home had probably all cheated on us, because that was just their nature, and we shouldn't get married or ever trust a man. This was surprising to hear, but it was reiterated throughout the weekend by men and women alike. After this conversation we talked a bit about Zulu culture and tradition and learned about parties with goat offerings to the ancestors and traditional African beer. 

Then on Saturday we went to one such house party and were able to try the African beer (which is brewed at home, has the texture of a smoothie and a bitter olive ish taste!) However most f the food was meat, so we stuck to the yummy biscuits and tea cookies which our host family just kept feeding to us!! Because we did not eat a "proper" meal one of her friends brought over a pasta and fish dish for us (since she really was at a loss as to what to cook for vegetarians!). The dish was amazing, and later on when we thanked her cooking for us she told is the ingredients, one of which was chicken broth, oooops. However this was pretty common, when we asked if something had meat in it, unless it was physically chunks of meat the answer was always no (for example gravy). So that was interesting. But this was the meal that was prepared especially for us, as our main course for the rest of the weekend, to be put with the veggie sides she made, so we just kept eating it and didn't say anything at all. Oh Well. I tried my best, which was hard because people bri (barbecue) a lot, and it always smells amazing. So, after the party we went to this cultural village place, where this traditional medicine man/artist/historian lived, and healed people, and made art to represent history. At least that's what I think it was. The pictures are really awesome. So, that was cool. Then we went home to rest a bit- we hung out with Mpumi, and I taught him how to make hemp bracelets, and we walked with him to the store, and helped him with the dishes. Then later we went out to a pub in SOWETO. We met up with another host group, so there four of us from the trip, our host mom and her niece plus one of her students who was hanging out with us. We did have fun, but I felt super awkward because people were staring at us, because we were the ONLY white people there!!! Oy. So that was a new experience for us. It was uncomfortable but not a huge deal. 

Then Sunday we were supposed to go to church, but we slept in til noon instead. Then Zen (the student/family friend) took us over to this big bri with a lot of the kids in the group and their host families. It was ok, nice to see everyone, but we decided to leave early to go do things around town. So we went to the mall to run errands. Here, at one of the stores I found a baby, just just learned to walk, still waddling, can barely say mama, little baby, ALL ALONE screaming and crying for her mother who was nowhere to be found. Eventually we found her mother who was too busy shopping to care for her kid, and then we left after zen scolded her for being irresponsible. In general there were lots of kids running around, unsupervised. When I asked her about it she said that maybe it is because there are so many teen pregnancies and young parents, that they are too busy worrying about going out and having fun, to really watch their kids- but that is just one opinion- So, after the mall we went to Pinyaza- a club - at around 5 on a sunday.... There were 3 new DJs playing so the place was packed, and they were charging 50 rand to get in, so we did what everyone else did and tailgated in the parking lot. There were hundreds of cars, and people just turned on their own music, drank their own beer, and danced in the field. It was super fun, and I had a great time- though again we were the only white people... So, some people would shout stuff at us like white girl, others would shout at our black friends/hosts why are you with white people, and others would come over to talk/shake hands/hug us, specifically because we were white. It was interesting, though at times uncomfortable, or hosts did a great job at shooing away creepy guys. In the end we found this group of guys dancing and they invited to come dance with them, so we hung out and danced for a while- also have a video to post of that, it was really a blast.  We got home for dinner and then said goodbye to zen. After hanging a bit more with mpumi we said our goodbyes because they were leaving early-before us- the next morning. They were very appreciative of our gifts and mpumi thanked us so many times, it was so sweet!!!! 

Basically that was three days in SOWETO.

Visiting the Democratic Alliance

Friday August 21st 

We met with a representative of the Democratic Alliance, the opposition party to the ANC (the party in power). She made many of us angry with her attitude towards the poor, she essentially said poor people should get jobs (disregarding root causes of the 40% unemployment rate) She also was extremely condescending towards traditional African beliefs and culture, and made it seem as if "they" (because she distinctly separated herself from africans) were part of the problem with the poor healthcare system, because they get ill as a result of not using modern medicine and relying on traditional healing. She also said that they need to break traditional culture in order to improve overall help. In all she was extremely offensive and patronizing, and made many of us upset and angry. It is easy to see why the ANC has remained in power so long, despite the fact that they haven't followed through with many of their promises, because their opposition is culturally insensitive and seen mostly as a white party, that would not represent the interests of the majority of black Africans.  

Catching up Jo'burg

Wow! It’s been a while! Basically, I didn’t have an adapter to charge my computer, and it died, then by the time I got an adapter we moved and I no longer had Internet. So, I'm in Namibia now, and will hopefully update about that later today after I finish catching up on South Africa!!

Wednesday August 19th
After the apartheid museum we had a speaker come talk to us about the economy of South Africa, and the difficulties SA faces. I learned a lot about the problems in SA such as high unemployment (over 40%) environmental degradation (from mining especially) and the economic segregation that still exists as a legacy of apartheid. We then went to a play called Ma Raven, and it was a very artistic representation of slavery in the French colonies. There were essentially four men doing modern and interpretive dance to different chants and music, in their underwear. It was very interesting, and very artsy, but not really my thing.

Thursday August 20th
We went to the office of the Anti-Privatization Forum. They spoke to us about their organization’s attempts to both lobby the government and mobilize grass roots campaigns to prevent and undo the privatization of previously government owned services such as water, electricity, transportation etc. They also work with women’s issues, and are branching out all over the country to provide support for likeminded nonprofit organizations.
Later we went to the Bruma Market. This is a local marketplace where people sell everything from food to crafts to electronics to soccer jerseys. After a yummy Indian curry lunch I bought a pair of earrings made out of banana leaves, and a few cool hand made dishes. The sales people were super aggressive, one even chased me about a block into another store to try to get me to buy a doll I was looking at. On the one hand I knew I should try to bargain because the prices were set high for tourists, but on the other hand I felt pretty guilty trying to get cheaper prices by 3-5$ (which is 20-40 Rand) when I know that amount of money would mean a lot more to them then it does to me.